some reflection on post-enlightenment qur'anic hermeneutics

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1408 Michigan State Law Review [Vol. 2006:1403ars. I will conclude this Article with a reflective examination of one ofthese problem areas—the issue of human equality as discussed in the coretexts of Islam and as exemplified by the historical and contemporary problemsof slavery and slavery-like conditions in Islamic societies. It is myview that hermeneutical examination of the issue of slavery offers the key toresolution of a number of other interpretive issues facing contemporary Islam.I will offer <strong>some</strong> observations on future trends for Islamic scholarshipin this area.For purposes of this symposium it is important to be clear about themeaning of the term “scholarship.” When I speak of scholarship, I refer tothe written discourse and the collective inquisitorial and investigative effortby learned persons to improve our knowledge and understanding of the vasttangible and intangible realms that make up our existence. The roots ofIslamic scholarly discourse can be traced to the Prophet Muhammad, hiscompanions, and their successors, many of whom became quite knowledgeablein a variety of jurisprudential, theological, and philosophical areas ofinquiry. The Prophet’s seventh century pronouncements on matters of social,legal, religious, and moral concern are central to this discourse. Also,the Prophet, his companions, and their successors’ efforts to explain andinterpret the Qur’an and translate the experience of the first Muslims into acoherent system of thought, belief, jurisprudence, and praxis were importantaspects of the early scholarly discourse.As is well known, this discourse underwent a tremendous explosion incomplexity and breadth as the Islamic project exploded west to AndalusianSpain and east to the Oxus River in Western Asia. 11 Modern Muslim intellectualsand many scholars of Islam look upon the period of these events,often described as the “Golden Age” of Islam, 12 with great fondness and11. See generally MARSHALL G.S. HODGSON, 1 THE VENTURE OF ISLAM:CONSCIENCE AND HISTORY IN A WORLD CIVILIZATION 197-206 (1974); IRA M. LAPIDUS, AHISTORY OF ISLAMIC SOCIETIES 31-44 (2d ed. 2002).12. See, e.g., TARIF KHALIDI, CLASSICAL ARAB ISLAM: THE CULTURE AND HERITAGEOF THE GOLDEN AGE (1985). The period of the “Golden Age” runs roughly from the time ofthe Prophet Muhammad’s consolidation of his hold on most of the Arabian Peninsula in orabout 630 C.E. until about 1258 C.E., when Baghdad fell to the Mongols. The periodroughly corresponds to the formation of the new Islamic state on the Arabian Peninsula, thesubsequent rise of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, the later decline of the Abbasids, thesimultaneous rise of the Tulunids, the Ikhshidids, the Idrisids, the Umayyads, the Fatimids,and the Ayyubids in Morocco, southern Spain, Tunis, Cairo, and Jerusalem, the rise of theSeljuks in Anatolia, and the early days of the Mamluk Sultanates based in Cairo, Jerusalem,and Damascus. See generally LAPIDUS, supra note 11, at 31-192, 283-94; HODGSON, supranote 11 at 311. The concept of a “Golden Age” is a contested one, and it is probably moreaccurate to refer to this period as the “classical” period in Islamic history. Professor Lapidus,for example, argues that there were really two “golden ages,” one occurring during the formativeperiod and the other occurring during the early days of the Ottoman Empire. See IraM. Lapidus, The Golden Age: The Political Concepts of Islam, 524 ANNALS OF THE
Special] Post-Enlightenment Qur’anic Hermeneutics 1409fascination. 13 It is actually three periods, and the demarcation of these periods,like all such efforts in history, is <strong>some</strong>what blurred. The first period,referred to as the “formative” period, extends from the time of the death ofthe Prophet Muhammad in 632 C.E. up to the years just before the establishmentof the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad in 750 C.E. 14 The secondperiod, described by Marshall G.S. Hodgson as “The Classical Civilizationof the High Caliphate” 15 began with the founding of a small but powerfulagrarian-based centralized state in Baghdad in 692 C.E. and continued withthe emergence of an imperial government in Baghdad in 750 C.E. 16 Thisgovernment, led by a series of visionary Caliphs and characterized by theemergence of elite classes comprised of physicians, jurists, theologians, andsoldiers commanding slave armies, flourished for over two hundred yearsand virtually transformed Islam into a world religion. 17 The third period,characterized by the decline of the Baghdad Caliphate and a concomitantrise of regional sultanates and other local governments claiming caliphalstatus, began in about 935 C.E. and extended for another three hundred yearperiod until Baghdad fell to the Mongols in 1258 C.E. 18 Although theBaghdad Caliphate at the center of the empire waned in power, the earlyexample it established for the conduct of scholarship and intellectual andreligious discourse became the model for the rising outlying sultanates andmini-caliphates. 19 Scholars working in the outer regions continued to proficientlyadvance the Islamic jurisprudential and theological project in impor-AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE 13 (1992). Professor Khaled AbouEl Fadl has argued that the idea of a “Golden Age” is really a product of the imagination ofthe salafists and Islamic revivalists who seek to return to a pristine version of Islam. See,Khaled Abou El Fadl, Islam and the Theology of Power, 221 MIDDLE EAST REPORT 28, 32-33(2001).13. See, e.g., HUGH KENNEDY, WHEN BAGHDAD RULED THE MUSLIM WORLD: THERISE AND FALL OF ISLAM’S GREATEST DYNASTY (2005).14. See LAPIDUS, supra note 11, at 31-66.15. HODGSON, supra note 11, at 231.16. Id. at 233-314.17. See generally WAEL B. HALLAQ, THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF ISLAMIC LAW122-93 (2005) (discussing the development of the judiciary, legal reasoning, and legal authorityduring the first century as well as the dramatic rise of prophetic authority, the crystallizationof legal theory, and the formation of the all-important legal schools during the classicalperiod). See also, generally, MARSHALL G.S. HODGSON, 2 THE VENTURE OF ISLAM:CONSCIENCE AND HISTORY IN A WORLD CIVILIZATION at 12-200 (describing these events asthe establishment of an “international civilization” and “international political order” andoffering specific examples of such developments); JOSEPH SCHACHT, THE ORIGINS OFMUHAMMADAN JURISPRUDENCE 269-282 (2d ed. 1953) (detailing the crystallization of legaldoctrine in the classical era).18. See LAPIDUS, supra note 11, at 112-32.19. Id. See also HALLAQ, supra note 17, at 172-77.
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